Can the new client networking stack in Silverlight 3 directly connect to Azure Storage or Mesh?

Question

From Tim Heuer:

In Silverlight 3 we’ve introduced the Client HTTP stack as an option as well. You must opt-in to use the client HTTP handling. This gives you the ability to go more than just GET/POST (i.e., more REST-ful verbs), using response status codes/headers, etc. You can opt-in to use the client HTTP stack on all requests, requests for a specific domain, or on a per-request basis like this:

HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequestCreator.ClientHttp.Create(new Uri(
            http://api.search.live.net/qson.aspx?query=Silverlight));

My understanding is that the reason Silverlight couldn't directly access Azure Storage is that it was unable to sign the http headers with authentication data. Would this bridge the gap and allow direct access to Azure Storage or Mesh? If so, how is that accomplished?

Answer 1

I'm not sure but you don't want to do this as your secret key would be on the client. Anyone loading your Silverlight code could crack open the binary and find your keys and then manipulate the data as if they were you.

One way to fix this is to proxy your requests through a server you control.

Before you ask, we are aware of this issue but don't have anything to announce now.

Answer 2

I checked and I'm afraid you cannot do this in Silverlight 3. Sorry :-(.